Keep Those Printing Presses Going!

In my debt snark post of the day, we have this to offer:

Treasuries rose yesterday after minutes of the Fed’s April policy meeting showed some officials are considering increasing debt purchases. Policy makers announced the buybacks on March 18, promising to buy as much as $300 billion of the securities by October to reduce consumer interest rates.

For those of you to whom this is Greek, it means that the US Government will print $300,000,000,000 more to pay its bills. Those dollars are backed up by ... nothing. No taxes, no debt, no sales, nothing. It's money created out of thin air.

Earlier, I predicted the Fed would print about $2T of fantasy money this year. When they plop out this $300B, we'll be at a total of $1.5T for the year to date.

If you want to see what the future holds, try these two tidbits.

The UK is just slightly ahead of us.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Britain may lose its AAA credit rating for the first time as government finances deteriorate in the worst recession since World War II.

Standard & Poor’s lowered its outlook on Britain to “negative” from “stable” and said the nation faces a one in three chance of a ratings cut as debt approaches 100 percent of gross domestic product.

Hungary is a little bit further out in front.

May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Hungary’s government is committed to overhauling its budget and expects austerity measures to boost investor confidence, paving the way to a potential international bond sale, Finance Minister Peter Oszko said ...

The European Union member needed a 20 billion euro ($27.2 billion) emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund, the EU and the World Bank last October to avert a default after its bond market froze.

OK, that's enough for today. I think.